This blog is a place that showcases the hobby in its many and varied games and products. A haven for those of us who want to see more of what the hobby has available and don't want to have to search though the static to find it.

Monday, March 18, 2013

How to Make Wargames Terrain

Recently I learned that one of the greatest resources available to us hobbyists had been removed from the market. For those of you who don't know of what I speak, I am referring to the GW book "How to Make Wargames Terrain". This resource was a godsend to those of us who got into the hobby without a solid group to lean on. It gave us a chance to have a great table to play on, one which we could be proud of, and not using books to represent hills. Sadly GW has discontinued it's sale, but if you can still get your hands on a copy it's well worth it.

The main reason I can see for it's discontinued sale is that GW has a lot more terrain for sale now then when they first published the book, thus they must feel the book competes with the premade stuff, and I guess it does to an extent. However the information is out there for those of us who know where to look and I'm going to highlight a few of the sources I think are worth looking into.

The first is a group called MiniWarGaming, they have a lot of videos for very specific terrain peices, like how to make a factory from a soup can. One of the added benefits of this groups videos has to be that the instructor has a bit of personality. All to often these videos are worse then a documentary of paint drying. I personally like a little quirkiness in my instruction, I mean we are all talking about playing with toy soldiers here. MiniWarGaming has quite a few Youtube videos up, not all of them are about terrain, but if you follow this link, you will get a playlist of there how to videos.

Next up is a guy from the other side of the world. Viv is a hobby enthusiast who runs his own shop. He has tons of hobby related videos most of which are about terrain and scenery. He does videos about how to make your own materials as well, such as colored flock. Word of warning, Viv can talk a bit fast, and occasionally I wish he would expound on what he is doing, but his stuff is solid. His youtube channel can be found here.

Of course, there are tons of other videos available for you to learn from. A simple look up of "how to make wargames terrain" brought up this list. So by no means am I saying that Viv and MiniWarGaming are the only way to do any of this. They just happen to be two of my favorites. Looking through list I just gave you, some were good, some awful, and some 'meh'. But what I like and how I learn may be different from yours, so your milage may vary.

For those of you who prefer to read in depth instruction I have two good resources for you as well. The first is 3t-studios they have an entire section called "Do It Your Damn Self" where they outline how to make various terrain pieces. Their instruction is good , if not great but should help anyone trying to make the types of terrain shown there.

My last entry for you all today is Scratch Building Wargames Terrain. It is one man's attempt to collect a slew of information on the topic, and he hits on a few topics, but none in great detail. The main reason I mention it, is not for the content itself (which is fine, just needs more) but for the fact that he has a great deal od links at the bottom of the page that showcase a slew of articles. I find this one to be a resource page more than an instruction page.

So anyway, I hope this helps any budding terrain makers out there, or showcases the fact that you can have great terrain without buying the premade stuff. If there is a resource out there that you know of that I didn't cover, leave it in the comments below, I'd love to see it. Thanks again, maybe one day you and I will play an game made entirely of beautiful terrain that we made ourselves. Till then...